New Boats for Old! 4 Jul 2008
As an RCYC overseas member and Squib sailor for the last 15 years it seemed only right to fly back to Burnham to take part in the Squib 40th Anniversary Regatta in June.
An extremely well sponsored event meant that at the end of the week a brand new Squib By the Lee named after the boat’s designer, Oliver Lee, was the raffle prize to be drawn at the prize giving dinner.
Our trusty old boat Sroda (84) had been pulled from its three year hibernation in a field a few days before the regatta and was sorely needing a bit of TLC and, more importantly, money lavished upon it but without the time or finances to do it we made do with our five year old sails and she performed admirably, allowing my crew, Richard Tucker, and me to finish an exceptable 9th overall.
Each competitor who sailed three races or more during the week was given four raffle tickets and there was an extra ticket for each day’s race winner. There were also some extra tickets drawn at random during the week. Unfortunately I did not manage to pick up any extra tickets during racing but my good luck started the day I won the “Dick of the Day” award followed by a random drawn ticket.
On the night of the draw, Adrian Fluker excelled himself with a cross between “The Price is Right” and “Millionaire”; he even had the prize hanging from the club crane so it could be viewed from the dining room window, whilst teasing, “Look what you could be winning!”. The format for the draw meant we had a four digit ticket and each hour the next number on the ticket would be drawn until just ten tickets were left.
For the finale the remaining ten ticket holders were brought to the front and ten numbers placed into a bowl. Slowly the ten ticket holders were whittled down to just two. In the end lucky number 8 was the winner at which point I was completely surrounded by friends and family and hoisted up into the air. There was a lot of champagne and congratulations all round and it took until the next day until it finally sank in!
Obviously without all the hardwork from numerous individuals within the Squib fleet and also the RCYC and the generous sponsorship the week received, this would not have been possible, so I would like to personally thank everyone involved who helped make me the winner of By the Lee (868).